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The Last Gasp of Australian Tennis’s Golden Era

On the night he beat Ken Rosewall to reach the final of the 1976 Australian Open, Mark Edmondson took the tram home, just like all the fans leaving the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club.

His girlfriend, Vicki, now his wife, still recalls the blunt commentary from one of their fellow straphangers: “ ‘Nice job beating Ken,’ the one bloke said, ‘but you won’t have much of a chance to beat Newky in the final, will you?’ ”

Edmondson, who was ranked No. 212 at the time and had been mopping floors at a hospital just weeks before, seized his opportunity, beating John Newcombe in the final. Thirty-five years later, he remains the lowest-ranked men’s player to win a major and the last native son to win the Australian Open, which begins Monday in Melbourne.

In 1976, the Australian Open was still considered the forgotten major, widely ignored in North America and Europe and often skipped by the world’s elite non-Australian players. Few foreign stars wanted to travel around the world to play in a tournament that started the day after Christmas and offered a first prize of only $7,500.

Perhaps even more daunting than the long flight, low pay and holiday schedule were the Australians themselves. In the 35 tournaments before Edmondson’s victory, Australian men had taken the trophy 30 times and finished second the other five years.

In a country filled with tennis legends, Edmondson was an unlikely hero. Weeks before the event, he was working odd jobs to save money to travel on the circuit the next year.

“My sister was a nurse at the time, and she said, ‘We’re always looking for cleaners and window washers at the hospital,’ ” Edmondson said in a phone interview from his home near Sydney. “I was doing some floor polishing and window cleaning, but then like seven days into it, I got the call from Tennis Australia.”

He traded in his mop and bucket for the chance to play, and seized the opportunity by winning the Tasmanian Open, which catapulted him into the main draw of the Australian Open. But money was still tight, so while most players stayed at the Melbourne Hilton, Edmonson stayed at a friend’s house, commuting nearly an hour in each direction.

The grass courts suited his game, which was built around a powerful serve, and Edmondson steamrolled his way into the semifinals, knocking off four top-50 players, including two finalists from previous Opens, Phil Dent and Dick Crealy.

But with a semifinal matchup against Rosewall looming, Edmondson simply hoped to avoid embarrassment. Rosewall, then 41, had won eight majors, the first the year before Edmondson, 21, was born. Despite his age, Rosewall was still ranked No. 2 in the world that Australian summer. Edmondson’s career highlights included winning a round at Wimbledon and his victory in Tasmania. By his own admission, he was “used to playing on Court 27 in front of some guy and his dog.”

Rosewall was a slight figure, ironically nicknamed Muscles, who sported a neat haircut and clean-cut look. Edmondson looked more like an Australian rules football player, with a stocky build, long and wild hair, and a handlebar mustache.

Behind his booming serve, Edmondson pulled off an unlikely four-set victory in stifling heat. Newspaper headlines around the world carried some variation on the theme of “Janitor Beats Rosewall.” Despite the audacious victory, it still seemed unlikely that Edmondson would come back the next day to beat Newcombe, the defending champion who had dethroned Jimmy Connors the previous year.

Aside from their mustaches, the finalists had little in common. Newcombe was a former world No. 1 who had won seven majors and ran with an entirely different crowd than the circles Edmondson traveled in. Three months before the final, he was in a vehicle with George W. Bush when Bush was arrested in Kennebunkport, Me., for drunken driving.

Before the match, Newcombe predicted that Edmondson would be nervous, and the comment inspired Edmondson, who overcame ferocious winds, bouts of gamesmanship and a crowd that favored Newcombe by winning, 6-7, 6-3, 7-6, 6-1.

“He put his head in his towel after the match, and I think I knew what was happening,” Vicki Edmondson said, recalling the emotional victory.

Photo

Mr. Edmondson in 2005 during the “Legends” doubles match at the Australian Open.Credit
Cianflone/Getty Images

Edmondson had lost his father to a brain tumor two years before, and the fact that his father did not get to see his bold win was the only disappointment on an otherwise perfect day. Edmondson dropped the trophy during the award presentation but managed to hang on to the winner’s check, which was used to pay off an overdue estate tax bill and to finance another year of chasing his dreams.

After the final, the news media emphasized Edmondson’s brief janitorial experience, much to his chagrin.

“They ended up getting out of me that I’d been a cleaner, so, therefore, I was a janitor,” Edmondson said. “After I won, one writer gave me a mop and bucket and had me throw it away for a photo op. So I’ve been a janitor all my life.”

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Edmondson became something of an antihero because of his lack of interest in charming the news media and his serious on-court demeanor.

The win improved his ranking to No. 56, but before the ink on his check had dried, he was off to Sudan, chasing another paycheck. Edmondson went on to enjoy a successful career — he reached a career-high rank of No. 25 in 1982 and won five major doubles titles in 13 years on the tour. He never won another singles major, and he never became the next great Australian star, but he managed to see the world and earned a living playing tennis, which suited him just fine.

“The only thing that’s annoying is how much money they get nowadays,” Edmondson said, referring to this year’s record-setting $2.2 million first prize, $500,000 more than he earned in his career. This year, a first-round loser will make nearly three times what Edmondson received for winning the tournament.

His win proved to be the last gasp of the golden age of Australian tennis. At the time, there were 10 Australian men’s players in the top 50; today there are none. Still, interest in celebrating a homegrown champion remains high — in 2005, when the Australian star Lleyton Hewitt made it to the final, the telecast garnered the second-highest rating of any program in the last decade, with more than four million Australian households tuned in.

In 2007, Edmondson was elected into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame, and a bust of his likeness was placed at Melbourne Park, the current site of the Australian Open.

“No way will something like that happen again,” Bud Collins, the journalist and TV commentator, said of Edmondson’s upset. “The guys at the top have separated themselves from the pack, and it’s a different sport now.”

A version of this article appears in print on January 14, 2011, on Page B16 of the New York edition with the headline: In 1976, No. 212 Came Out No. 1. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe